Unsaid Things
by Oh You in that Dress
Summary: "You wouldn't want to hear them." [Oneshot for Tyzula Advent 2016]


**tyzula advent prompt: goodbye kiss**

* * *

Azula stared at the pallid, sweating woman lying in her bed.

She was not prepared for this. No one told her how to deal with something like death.

"I've killed a lot of people, being a soldier," Azula took a deep breath. She could not let her voice shake. "So did you, I guess. It was always so easy. This isn't easy. I know you can't hear me but I guess that makes it better. I have no need to be the person you fell in love with, and so… a lot of things were left unsaid. Maybe this counts as saying them."

She told her she thought that the most terrifying experience in her life would be getting locked up, and that the most painful would be the nail marks that left scars all over her limbs. No, the most terrifying experience was knowing that she could not do anything to stop this. No, the most painful was standing here and trying to make ugly words sound pretty.

 _'_ _I was always good at that,'_ she added.

She took back those words. No, she was wrong again. The most painful thing in the world was knowing she would never see this girl ever again, far too young, far too early, far too out of Azula's control and that made her burn the curtains and trinkets on surfaces an hour ago.

And she told her that she really thought the most painful experience was losing the only person she ever felt a shred of compassion towards. She told her she never returned an _I love you_ and that was dreadful of her.

Ty Lee coughed. Her eyes fluttered open. Azula did not allow herself to hope.

"Did you hear all of that?" Azula asked, her heart thudding.

"Yeah," said Ty Lee, not bothering to sound sweet or seductive or anything she thought Azula wanted her to be. She was losing her anyway. "I think," Ty Lee said after those thoughts crossed her mind, "I think that we're way too immature to be in love and that we really had no idea what we were in for. I should've…"

"It doesn't matter," said Azula in a hushed tone. "Regrets are pointless at the moment."

"But I bet you have them," Ty Lee replied.

 _'_ _Don't take that tone with me,'_ she would have said. "I don't. They are unprofessional."

"Yeah, you do. You wouldn't be saying stuff to a dying person if you didn't."

Azula walked to the bed and dared to sit beside her.

"What are you thinking?" asked Azula, a question that never left her lips in the past.

"Nothing," lied Ty Lee.

"You have to do better than that," Azula replied.

"I'm thinking that I'll never get to laugh again, and I'll never get to walk on my hands again, and I'll never get to…" Ty Lee had too many things to voice them all. "I'll never see you again and you're like the most important person to me. I say that to everybody but I only mean it when I'm saying it to you. I promise. I don't have to lie right now."

"I know that," said Azula, although she always had her doubts. "I should leave you for a moment."

Ty Lee grabbed her. She always was so strong. Azula always hid the fact that she liked it.

"Don't go, please," she whispered. It was not an order; it was a plea of a dying woman. Not a woman. The plea of a dying teenager who would never reach twenty.

"I just have changed my mind about the unsaid things," said Azula. "You wouldn't want to hear them."

"I trust you."

"Famous last words."

"There's only one thing you've never said and if you've never said it because it's not true then tell me anyway."

Azula grappled with her own mind more than she ever had before, and that was saying something. Still, she was brave.

"I love you," said Azula, forcing it out to the best of her ability.

Ty Lee replied, "About time."

Azula's skin flushed. "That's not what you're supposed to say."

Ty Lee smiled at her. It was the first smile in a long time, so Azula let her anger go. There was no need to hold a grudge against the dead.

"Just stay here with me for a while. You don't need to say anything," said Ty Lee.

Azula nodded.

She left everything else unsaid.

The silence was comfortable, but heartbreaking, because the silent turned into rattling breathing and it was disturbingly after she was gone that Azula slowly stood up.

Why was she so alone? Why was she the only one with her?

Azula leaned down and kissed her on the lips.

Only one other unsaid thing mattered, and Azula whispered it.

"Goodbye."


End file.
